Age-old debate

Talking 'bout my generation Sophie Hart-Walsh, aged 19, has never wanted to be a teenager

Everyone knows teenagers are rebellious, moody, angst-ridden, hormonal, sulky, difficult, irresponsible, obnoxious, self-obsessed egomaniacs with no ear for real music, no eye for art, no knowledge of culture or social etiquette and no interest in anything created before the year 2000. They know nothing about the classics: important films, major works of literature, dramatic icons, rock'n'roll, blues, jazz, the 1960s, the 1950s, the war... They don't understand what happened in their parents' golden years, and what's more, they don't care. They have eyes only for Lindsay Lohan and Jay-Z. They are barely even fully fledged human beings. As Evelyn Waugh once sneered, "What is youth, except a man or a woman before it is ready or fit to be seen?"

Most people my age - I'm 19 years old- try to shrug off the stigma of being "teenage" because it seems that the vast majority of people we meet think as Waugh did. According to online research conducted by AOL, 72 per cent of adults believe that teenagers deserve the bad press they receive - that because we've hit a certain age, we must have all the charm and charisma of Neville Longbottom, the resident nerd of Hogwarts Academy.

It is this stereotype that I hate more than anything else. The worst thing about being a teenager is the assumptions that are made against you. Conversations are dumbed-down for your benefit. Things that you know intimately are explained to you with enragingly infinite patience. We are denied entry into the wide world of culture, music, film, theatre, art, literature and history, because it is assumed that we're a whole generation whose only interests are hair straighteners and the Sugababes.

There's one conversation I've suffered far too frequently (while seething with internal rage.) It goes like this: "Sorry, you wouldn't have heard of Elvis Costello, would you? He's different to Elvis the King, of course. He once sang a song about Chelsea. You like shopping there, don't you." (Arrrggghhh...)

A recent rash of surveys has sought to demonise modern teenagers as every generation of fearful bourgeois parents has done since the invention of the word "teenager' somewhere in the 1950s, when James Dean, in Rebel Without a Cause, yelled the fateful words, "You're tearing me apart!" A survey conducted by the Institute for Public Policy Research suggests that British adults now live in fear of being physically attacked and verbally abused by juvenile delinquents.

But this is nothing new. British adults were scared to death of adolescents when teddy boys roamed the streets in the 1950s, when mods and rockers hit the tranquil beaches of Brighton and Eastbourne in the 1960s, when skinheads bashed up gays and "Pakis" on Clapham Common in the 1970s. Forty-odd years ago, Edgar Friedenberg wrote, in The Vanishing Adolescent, "The teenager seems to have replaced the communist as the appropriate target for public controversy and foreboding" - a judgement which has effortlessly survived the fall of communism.

Most of my adolescence has been spent trying to work out how not to seem like a teenager - how to appear much older and more mature. My friends and I learnt quickly. Wearing too much make-up and a pencil skirt on the bus, in the hope that we would be charged full fare. Walking differently. Learning how to dominate conversations and win arguments with inexhaustible, bulldozer-style monologues filled with four-syllable (albeit meaningless) words. The boys putting on husky voices and two-piece suits to go down to the off-licence and chat loudly into a mobile about "the morning meeting", in a foolproof bid to score four litres of cider. Devoting so much time and theatricality to my attempts to escape the stereotype, I never really felt like a teenager.

You're aware of the responsibilities ahead, that, as soon as you're past 21, you must grow up and be serious. But as soon as you plunge headfirst into the adult world (a member of which you've been pretending to be for the last 10 years) you'll spend the rest of your life yearning for your lost youth, waistline and social life - and you'll start behaving like a teenager again. Middle-aged men, it often appears, seem to believe it is their God-given right to maintain the levels of dignity and composure they had at 16. My father (aged 53) has been known to throw scorching hissy fits ending in a whiny crescendo of "Na-haaahh" when he hasn't lopped the top of his boiled egg off at the correct point, or when his spectacles fall into his cornflakes. Perhaps this return to adolescence is understandable, because teenagers tend to get away with murder. As Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners, said, "Once you identify a period of time in life in which people get to stay out late but don't have to pay taxes - naturally, no one wants to live any other way."

The idea of "teenage years" turned the concept of childhood on its head. What child, regardless of their circumstance, doesn't look forward to a decade of rebellion, enthusiasm, passionate liaisons, energy and independence. As my seven-year-old brother, when asked the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?" replied, "I want to be 15, 16, 17 or one of those numbers, because I can just hang out."

It's hard to define what being a teenager means today. The word was only invented in the 20th century - is it meaningful any more? Is there such thing as a real teenager now? There's a litany of apparently representative stereotypes: the girls in Clueless, bird-brained blondes who think only about lipstick; Harry Enfield's Kevin; the obnoxious and violent youths in tracksuits who live on council estates like the ones in the film Kidulthood; the gawky, bespectacled Saffy from Absolutely Fabulous, the spokeswoman for school swots everywhere.

Everyone, though, has the capacity to act like a teenager. It's not something that kicks in the minute you reach 13, and departs like morning mist at 19. The word has become shorthand for a state of mind. You are a teenager as soon as your behaviour conforms to the stereotype put out by the media. Naomi Campbell throwing her mobile phone at her assistant when she didn't get her own way at once was clearly just experiencing a Teen Moment. Chelsea manager José Mourinho - the archduke of teenage behaviour - seems unable to last an entire 90-minute football match without bitching and whining about conspiring referees or the response time of the local hospital, or simply screaming "It's not fair!"

At a recent party held for my brother's 15th birthday, my father and I spent the afternoon hiding bits of furniture and putting out cups of squash, in trembling fear of the hordes of cut-throat hooligans who were about to descend upon the house that evening. In reality, a group of upstanding individuals came round at 7.05pm and proceeded to take us on a tour of the rooms offering a detailed warning of the trouble we could expect from their fellow partygoers: "Are you seriously going to leave that wine rack there? They'll have that gone in about 20 minutes..." In the end, the most damaging thing the troublesome youths did was to convince us to believe their hype.

Why do young people commit crime? A fresh take on an old problem

Simon, 18, ex-offender

Having been inside, I would say that stopping shotting [drug dealing] is the last thing on my mind - if anything there's definitely no way back now. There need to be more opportunities for people to do vocational studies. Once people don't succeed in mainstream education, crime is an attractive option. Shotting means instant money, respect and power. You learn a lot more about crime in prison. The people you meet increase your contacts and make it even easier to slip back when you come out. With no job opportunities and no dough you just say "fuck it" and carry on.

Adam, 16, non-offender

Kids commit crime because there's no sense of community any more. Outside of school there isn't as much chance for children to communicate across the different parts of society, and most people stick to the group they know. I also think that the system doesn't punish youths enough; a young teenager can commit GBH and people don't even bother to report it because they know nothing will be done.

Alan, 20, ex-offender

Prison doesn't do anything to stop you re-offending, it just teaches you new tricks. Young people outside who are vulnerable to criminal activities will try to make money any way possible. It needs to be taught that crime is not the easiest way to go because of the repercussions and what you must endure while participating. An education system in jail is vital for rehabilitation. Inmates are left languishing in cells reading porn. They wake you at 7.30 for breakfast and leave you in your cell till lunch. You get "soc" [social time] after lunch for phone calls, a shower and socialising with inmates. Certain wings hold inmates for 23 hours.

Cleo, 19, non-offender

A lot of young people haven't been brought up, they've been dragged up. It comes down to society failing everyone and everyone failing society; it's a vicious circle. The Government labels challenging people as rebels and trouble-makers. Media is another factor; music videos glamorise the gangster lifestyle, and promote things like girls, money and drugs. What they don't show is legitimate ways of how to achieve them, so the illegal routes look easier and quicker.

Interviews by Brendan Kelly, who is 18 years old and is a contributor to the youth-run magazine 'Live!'

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